It’s been a long while since anyone saw or heard from the acclaimed actor Daniel Day-Lewis. Following his announcement in 2017 that he would cease to pursue acting, prior to the release of The Phantom Thread, the actor withdrew from the spotlight. Yet, during his hiatus, his legend expanded further.
The Mythos of His Acting Method
Largely, this reputation revolves around his favored style of working. As someone known for disappears into the roles he plays – for example, while filming the Lincoln biopic, he had Steven Spielberg address him as “Mr President” for the entire production – audiences has become increasingly obsessed with his process. Did he actually sent texts to Sally Field in character as Lincoln? Did he only eat animals he’d killed during The Last of the Mohicans? Did he insist on receiving food via spoon for My Left Foot?
Extreme acting methods: have we lost interest with actorly excess?
Currently, Daniel Day-Lewis is back to public attention, with some hesitation, promoting his latest movie Anemone. And he is using this to express his frustration at how method acting is viewed. “I’m a little cross nowadays when I hear all kinds of people gobbling off and saying things like ‘gone full method’, which I think is meant to imply that a person’s behaving like a lunatic in a drastic way,” he told a major publication. “People tends to focus on the less important details of the work, and those details always seem to involve some form of self-flagellation or an experience that causes extreme unease or mental instability. But of course, in the life of an actor, it has to mainly focus on the inner transformation.”
An Industry Full of Followers
Frankly, it appears as if the actor has come out from seclusion only to discover aghast at the acting community that has developed in his image. If you’re widely considered one of the greatest actors in history, and your approach involves striking a prop to the point of injury (for Gangs of New York) or enduring two days in isolation deprived of sustenance (during In the Name of the Father), it’s natural that fellow performers will attempt to fill that vacuum by trying to mimic your hero.
Essentially, we now live in a landscape populated by imperfect imitators of Day-Lewis who want nothing more than to demonstrate the extensive degree of effort they invest in a character. On the milder side of this trend there are performers such as Lady Gaga, who was determined to earn an Academy Award for House of Gucci that she dedicated the whole campaign trying to convince everyone that she transformed into an Italian native for a year and a half as preparation.
Additionally, there is Jared Leto, who chose to deeply embed himself into the role of the Joker (for Suicide Squad) by sending “disturbing” presents to his castmates. These items, depending on who you ask, included deceased animals to anal beads and used condoms, though Leto denied those worst excesses. Then, naturally, we have Jim Carrey, who went so deep as Andy Kaufman for Man on the Moon that filmmakers literally managed in creating a feature-length documentary out of B-roll of him causing difficulties as impossible as he could for his colleagues.
Contemporary Method Practitioners
The foremost Method Guy currently seems to be Jeremy Strong (once an assistant to Day-Lewis), whose approach during Succession was so laboriously intensive that it became the subject of a critical magazine feature, including statements from individuals who were either concerned for his behaviour (“It’s the cost to himself that worries me,” said co-star Brian Cox) or extremely irritated by it (“I recall him causing others roll their eyes,” said an anonymous cast member).
Daniel Day-Lewis claims he ‘never intended to stop acting, really’
We have so many other examples. Andrew Garfield went celibate for six months for Silence. Leonardo DiCaprio rested inside a dead animal during The Revenant. It’s quite possible that Austin Butler continues to talk in the style of Elvis, years following the movie’s release. All of this, in part, aims to evoke the seriousness with which Day-Lewis approaches his work.
An Admirable But Uphill Fight
Moreover, although his rebuttal against method detractors might be noble, a short publicity tour might not be enough to alter perceptions, not to mention their behaviour. Maybe if he wishes to make audiences recall the true essence of the Method, or to show them what it can achieve, then the optimal strategy for Day-Lewis is to just start making more films. Surely we could all support that idea.
